The Blame Game

Sometimes we make mistakes, like saying the wrong thing or follow a path meant for someone else. Only to have life chew us up and regurgitates us closer to where we are truly meant to be. It’s up to us to take the lessons learned from these challenges and grow from them. Being embarrassed, ashamed, hurt or (any emotion that comes from the feeling of failure) is unpleasant, and nobody likes it. But this is life and we all go through it.

There are times I have blamed others for my falls because that’s the human thing to do. Except blaming others for my actions made me a victim and successfully removed my own power to change my situation. This was a weird optical illusion I inflicted upon myself that did not do me any favors. It just allowed me to wallow in self-pity and stay stuck in my inability to change. When in reality it was really my responsibility to make the changes that lead to the life I want.

Blaming others did not help me grow, it kept me stuck and paralyzed with fear. I did not want to admit that just maybe… I could possibly be responsible for my situation. Realizing I had made my own mess would also make me accountable to clean it up! OH NO. The horror! I can joke and laugh at myself now, because this behavior just doesn’t even seem logical to me today.

Because of my experiences of doing this in my younger years and seeing this same pattern play out over and over, I would get so frustrated at the stickiness it created in my life. I had no other option but to admit my behaviors and my tendencies, then do the work to really changing this habit. I matured into self-acceptance and awareness by seeing this in myself and watching others go through their tribulations as well.

It did take me a while to have the courage to be honest with myself and start noticing these tendencies to blame when they came up. I had to reel in my reactions and start being proactive! There were times I would voluntarily cut off my nose to spite my face, before I admitted any wrongdoing. As you can imagine this did not get me far in life. Yet the outcomes did help me to see that it was no longer how I wished to behave.

There is a silver lining to admitting I wasn’t perfect after all, even though I knew it all along. Allowing some self-awareness, helped me grow into a better person, or at least in the direction of ‘better’ as I defined it. I am not saying that I always blamed others. It was just those times in which I was too stubborn to admit I was wrong, that I was willing to dig my heals in and harm a valued relationship instead of working it out, those were the big lessons for me.

I’ve come to view these times in our lives, in which we play the “Blame Game,” as an opportunity to learn. I see it to be an essential experience for us as we mature, to mature. How do we deal with it? I have learned that sometimes it is hard to admit when I am at fault. Nobody likes to eat crow, as they say, yet learning to value my relationships instead of giving priority to my pride has proven to be worth it over and over again. Has this been true for you too?